Hasta La Gadget!

BlueAnt’s been slinking along in the shadows of the (thankfully) dwindling Bluetooth headset market for years now, and aside from that one voice-controlled V1 that popped two years ago, we haven’t seen much from the outfit that really got our juices flowing. Until today, naturally. The rugged, May-bound T1 headset ($79.99) doesn’t look drastically different (or smaller) than the aforesaid V1, but it’s the firm’s first to feature Wind Armour Technology — something that’s engineered to “deliver clear audio in wind speeds up to 22mph.” It’s also built to withstand the occasional drop and bout with dust / moisture, and in case that’s not enough, it’ll also audibly announce who’s calling so long as they’re in your address book. As you’d expect, A2DP streaming audio is fully supported, as is multipoint (which allows it to remain connected to two phones at once and respond to whichever rings first). In related news, the company also announced its new Q1 app for Android (due April 1st), which helps Q1 headset users by reading text messages aloud to you via a presumably flawed text-to-speech system. Hit up the source links for the fully skinny on each, or just hop on past the break for a pair of superbly informative videos.

Continue reading BlueAnt intros rugged T1 Bluetooth headset, sophisticated Android app

BlueAnt intros rugged T1 Bluetooth headset, sophisticated Android app originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint Premier customers are being treated to a rather tantalizing account alert tonight: “Visit us tomorrow for an exciting announcement about a groundbreaking new device.” No other details provided, but if we had to make an educated guess, we’d say all signs are pointing towards HTC’s Supersonic, the long-rumored WiMAX smartphone with a 4.3-inch screen and Android 2.1 with Sense UI. A 4G device would certainly fit the billing as “groundbreaking,” and we’ve already heard of plans to unveil the phone at CTIA, which officially kicks off tomorrow. A web chat transcript found on the Sprint Community seems to corroborate, but we can’t at this point verify the validity of the screen capture. You can view the entirety of the purported web chat after the break. If we do wake up tomorrow to a shiny, large-screened WiMAX phone, care to take bets on what Sprint CEO Dan Hesse is gonna talk up in his Wednesday keynote?

[Thanks, Jackson R and Aggrey J]

Continue reading Sprint to announce ‘groundbreaking new device’ (HTC Supersonic?) tomorrow

Sprint to announce ‘groundbreaking new device’ (HTC Supersonic?) tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve just received a veritable cornucopia of information around Samsung’s supposed announcements out at CTIA this week — and seeing how this is the biggest wireless show the US has to offer, you might imagine that the reveals are fairly US-focused while still hanging onto some global relevance. Here’s what we know:

• The company’s so-called “Smart Life” philosophy for smartphone design and differentiation — something we’ve heard referred to as S Life in the past, including here at CTIA — will be formally introduced. It won’t so much be a product or a smartphone platform (as far as we can tell) so much as an overarching strategy.
• A 1GHz applications processor will be announced as the “new standard” in Sammy’s premium smartphone segment for 2010; in all likelihood, this is the Cortex A8-based core announced in the middle of last year.
• A huge content push will be announced (US market mercifully included) with full-length movies and shows that are “optimized” to take advantage of the company’s new Super AMOLED displays. You’ll also see some book and magazine deals get struck for straight-to-mobile delivery, but it sounds like we won’t get the straight dope on how it’ll all work (and who’s involved, exactly) this week.
• Kicking off S Life from the hardware side will be the Galaxy S, Samsung’s big phone announcement for the week. As far as we can tell, it’ll be an Android device taking advantage of Super AMOLED and the company’s homegrown 1GHz core — and it’ll be available in the US this year.

That’s all we’ve got so far, but Sammy’s mobile prez J.K. Shin has a keynote tomorrow morning along with an event immediately afterward, so we expect to get this fleshed out in the next day or so. Stay tuned!

Samsung to announce Galaxy S smartphone, content initiatives this week originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Motorola’s Android-powered i1 launching at CTIA

Motorola’s Android-powered i1 launching at CTIA originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes folks, it’s finally really happened. Today Palm announced that its dynamic duo — the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus — will be making their way to AT&T’s network “in the coming months.” We won’t bore you with too many details on the devices, since you can read our review of the non-Plus Sprint variations here and here, and the Verizon versions right here. What we will tell you is that at an undisclosed time, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus can be yours for just $149.99 and a deep-discount $49.99 (with a $100 mail-in rebate and two-year contract), respectively. The Pre Plus will be similarly equipped to its Verizon counterpart (16GB of storage, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1), and the Pixi should look awfully familiar as well (8GB storage, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1), though AT&T will be offering a variation with a blue back plate (in addition to the standard black and other swappable covers). Both UMTS / HSDPA devices will support AT&T’s new Address Book service as a Synergy sync option, and will have free auto-connect access to the carrier’s WiFi +20,000 hotspots. We don’t know when we’ll get our hands on these guys, but Palm will be showing off the AT&T-ified versions of the handsets at the upcoming CTIA… which we will of course be attending. It should be interesting to see if hopping on AT&T’s network will move the needle for Palm, let’s just hope those “coming months” are, you know… pretty soon. Full PR and one more pic after the break.

Continue reading Official: Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus for AT&T ‘in the coming months’

Official: Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus for AT&T ‘in the coming months’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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